Meet Geriatrician Gregory Ouellet, MD, MHS

Gregory Ouellet, MD, MHS, is a geriatrician investigator who cares for older adults with complex medical problems. He helps with daily function, quality of life, and difficult clinical decisions that often come along with aging. Many of his patients and their families seek guidance for managing geriatrics syndromes (e.g., cognitive and functional impairments) in the context of chronic conditions. As a specialist at Yale Medicine’s Dorothy Adler Geriatric Assessment Center, where a comprehensive set of medical, psychological, cognitive, and social factors are addressed, Dr. Ouellet considers a variety of questions with each new patient. "We think about things like, ‘How can we optimize quality of life and day-to-day function? Do they have any social support? Who's helping them accomplish activities of daily living like bathing and dressing? Do they have problems with walking? Are they tripping and falling? How can we best target medical, psychological, and social interventions to make their lives better?’” Dr. Ouellet also sees patients who have been admitted to the geriatric acute care unit at Yale New Haven Health’s Saint Raphael campus. “There, I see pretty much the whole spectrum of older adults coming in for a medical condition that requires a hospital stay,” he says. “What's special is that everybody who works in the unit has received special training in terms of creating an age-friendly health system—they are making sure our patients are getting up and moving, recognizing when there's cognitive impairment, and thinking about how those things may be interfering with care both while they're in the hospital and in the outside world after discharge.” In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Ouellet is improving the care of older adults through research. His focus is improving the care of chronic conditions for vulnerable older adults, particularly those with dementia. He is investigating whether individuals with dementia may experience different benefits and harms from common medications for chronic conditions. The ultimate goal of this work is to achieve tailored treatment plans that maximize benefits and minimize harms and burdens of treatment.